Electronic issuing of gift cards

1. Technical Field

The present disclosure relates in general to the field of gift cards, and particularly to electronic gift cards. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to issuing and managing electronic gift cards in a secure manner.

2. Description of the Related Art

Rather than giving physical gifts or money, many people choose to give gift cards, which allow the recipient the option of selecting a particular gift from a participating store. Since such gift cards are physical cards, they are subject to theft and/or fraudulent use. Furthermore, since such gift cards are for a fixed denomination (value), they often expire with unused amounts of value.

A method of issuing and managing an electronic gift card is presented. A gift card purchase order for a primary electronic gift card is received by a gift card issuing server. The gift card issuing server transmits a first unique gift card identifier to the purchaser of the primary electronic gift card. The purchaser then has the option of partitioning the gift card into multiple gift cards, which are sent, via e-mail or text messages, to split gift card assignees.

The above, as well as additional purposes, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.

With reference flow to FIG. 1, there is depicted a block diagram of an exemplary computer 102, in which the present invention may be utilized. Note that some or all of the exemplary architecture shown for computer 102 may be utilized by software deploying server 150, gift card issuing server 152, and/or retail store server 154. Note further that, with the use of a transceiver 126 shown in FIG. 1, computer 102 describes requisite hardware for a telephone, including a cellular phone, and more specifically, a “smart phone” such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) phone, etc., which may be utilized in the present invention.

Computer 102 includes a processor unit 104 that is coupled to a system bus 106. A video adapter 108, which drives/supports a display 110, is also coupled to system bus 106. System bus 106 is coupled via a bus bridge 112 to an Input/Output (I/O) bus 114. An I/O interface 116 is coupled to I/O bus 114. I/O interface 116 affords communication with various I/O devices, including a keyboard 118, a mouse 120, a Compact Disk-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) drive 122, a floppy disk drive 124, and a transceiver 126. Transceiver 126 may be a wire-based or wireless-based transceiver, capable of transmitting and receiving a signal using a wired or a wireless medium (e.g., a radio wave). The format of the ports connected to I/O interface 116 may be any known to those skilled in the art of computer architecture, including but not limited to Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports.